略论美国南部奴隶制棉花种植园的性质和生存逻辑

The Nature and Survival Logic of the Slaveholding Cotton Plantations in American South

美国内战前南部的奴隶制棉花种植园经济扎根于全球资本主义的土壤之中,并发挥了自身“野蛮资本主义”在土地获得、资本抵押、人口繁殖以及劳动组织等方面的优势,尤其是依托了主人对奴隶的人身占有这种最根本的因素。暴力因素与各生产要素进行扭曲性结合的后果是,南部经济获得了虚假的繁荣,种植园主阶级的政治和社会特权地位得到强化,不过这也埋下了与北部工业资本主义互相冲突的种子。

The slave-holding cotton plantation economy in the antebellum American South was deep rooted in the fertile soil of global capitalism,and exerted its own“barbaric capitalism”advantages in land acquisition,chattel mortgage,population reproduction,and labor organization,particularly through the physical possession of slaves by their owners.The result of the distorted combination of the element of violence with various factors of production was the false prosperity for the Southern economy and the strengthened political and social privileges of the plantation class.However,this also sowed the seeds of conflict with the industrial capitalism of the North.